F1’s “archaic” leadership is holding it back – Lopez

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In the round-up: Lotus chairman Gerard Lopez is concerned those running the sport are holding it back.

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F1 has 'archaic management', says Lotus boss (ESPN)

"Why do these potential sponsors never make the leap when they are not really undaunted by the amounts requested in F1. What's holding them back? Is it because of the sport's archaic management and organisation?"

Renault should have Red Bull fixes for Barcelona (F1i)

"Red Bull experienced more problems because the power unit integration process is different on the RB11, compared to Toro Rosso’s STR10; the intercooler installation is not the same for instance."

Renault could postpone F1 engine development push to help 2016 (Autosport)

"Renault has revealed that it may tactically delay using Formula 1 engine development tokens early this season in a bid to make bigger gains for 2016."

Don't underestimate engine development for 2015 says Cowell (James Allen on F1)

"I believe that the current architecture can produce roughly 1,000 hp and more sound if we increase the flow rate. However, we should not dilute the concept of energy efficiency."

She Aims to Be Strong and Lean for Driving Formula One Cars (The Wall Street Journal)

"Regardless of gender, it’s very hard to get to Formula One as there are so few opportunities. I can’t say whether it’s tougher for me than for others."

A tall order (The Way It Is)

"IndyCar today is no healthier than Champ Car was ten years ago. Its media footprint continues to dwindle and outside Indianapolis, IndyCar barely exists in the national media - TV, radio and print. If the situation was desperate ten years ago it may be unfixable today."

The Williams FW15C #02 (Cars International)

"This very car enabled (Damon) Hill to establish himself as a man to watch, gave him his first successes, and played a crucial role in laying the foundation for his World Championship that was to follow three years later."

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Comment of the day

Does calling last year’s Lotus “aggressive” give it too much credit?

Can teams please stop using the word ‘aggressive’ when they mean to say ‘wrong’.

Last years car wasn’t aggressive by many standards, it wasn’t aggressive compared to other cars that season (many had much much tighter and ambitious packaging given the new power units), or even with cars made at Enstone (the R31 from 2011 was aggressive).

I’ve heard Ferrari and McLaren both say their cars have been aggressive, even when they’ve been comparatively conservative. It’s nothing more than a euphemism for getting it wrong.
@DavidS

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On this day in F1

Four years ago today unrest in Bahrain forced the cancellation of the GP2 Asia rounds at the track. The same would eventually force F1 to abandon its race at the track after monthly of wrangling.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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69 comments on “F1’s “archaic” leadership is holding it back – Lopez”

  1. Of course it’s archaic if it’s being run by a dinosaur who still believes in the concept of “exclusivity” on TV, in the age of internet exposure. No wonder there’s only a few sponsors left in the sport. Once Bernie disappears, the sport should flourish again.

    1. Only if CVC disappear with him.

      1. ColdFly F1 (@)
        17th February 2015, 2:18

        Actually, I do not think that CVC will stop change. They only look to maximise the return on their investment; growing the cake has more potential than increasing their slice.

        It is just that they do not have the balls to retire BE. Or BE has some insights stopping them from doing so.

    2. A sure fire way to lose fans is to make actually consuming the sport less accessible.

      F1 needs to “open source” itself somewhat. Provide as many formats as possible for the fans to consume. Free-to-Air (with ads, that’s fine), Pay-TV (for those who want better coverage), Online Streaming (for those who want greater control) and any other format that might exist.

      Then open up all the F1 video archives to the public via their website. Allow fans to create their own stories and highlight reels. Set up an official F1 YouTube channel featuring official clips and also feature the best fan-made reels.

      Allow people to consume how they want to consume, and I am certain viewing figures will increase significantly allowing greater sponsorship exposure.

      1. when F1 opens itself up to online streaming of all races live, i’ll be the 1st person to sign up no matter what the cost. That’s pretty much the only thing keeping me tied to cable TV so even if there is a bit of sticker shock, it’s still saving money over the course of a season

      2. With some of the best technology in the world. Why is none of it used in broadcasting or marketing. Don’t just stop at prerecorded highlights. I want raw access to all the data. People should be able to mix and stream there own live coverage. Where’s the lotus stream that while covering what happens in the race really just focuses on their cars. Each team could produce it’s own.

        People should pay to subscribe to streams rather than paying the big tv companies.

        Oh i wish F1 was technically innovative in more than just cars.

        1. Absolutely. The stuff that could be done if F1 would just open up it’s data a little bit to developers is incredible. An open F1 API, where you could say, have access to cars GPS co-ordinates would be amazing. You could hypothetically create a game where you could race along with a Grand Prix for example.

        2. Yeah that’s what I meant. Provide full access to F1’s entire archive, so fans to make their own F1 stories and highlight reels.

          Just imagine the quantity and quality of history we’d get to see when fans can dedicated thousands of hours (for free mind you) trawling through the archives stringing together the footage.

          Sure, there will be plenty of crap too – but that’s normal. People have to start and learn somewhere.

          1. Oh wait, read closer – “stream and mix their own coverage” – that’s what I was thinking with “greater control”.

  2. I think Mercedes are knocking on 1000hp this year anyway aren’t they? If Renault are on 850, and Mercedes have kept their 80 or so advantage then we’re a bit over 900hp, and with the tokens (if used for performance not reliability) then we could be around 950hp by the end of the season. Surely then next year we’ll be at 1000hp (close enough I’d say) even with fuel flow limits. That would be incredible if that happened, even though it’s a fantasy. Although, if we got there I’d still want the fuel flow limits removed, if only for qualifying so we can hear the engines roar…

    1. it’s not the peak horse power that is winning Mercedes their race victories. the peak HP figure you refer to is meaningless because it doesn’t account for the whole power curve or the efficiency of the motor. Renault could have 200+bhp over Mercedes and they could still lose by 2+ miles by the end of the race. Peak HP is only good for passing someone down the straight or during qualifying.

      1. erm… science a little off there me thinks

        efficiency = energy out / energy in

        .. and because the peak fuel flow is constant, the car with the higher BHP/Kilowatts therefore has higher efficiency in this instance – unless im missing something!

        1. saying science and making an over generalization won’t win you an argument. Facts are facts, and peak horse power is not what you want to win races. It’s not what Renault needed to power Red Bull to it’s four championships and it’s not what Mercedes need to keep stomping on the rest of the field with. Peak horse power, and the energy that the Merc PU produces are related, but not as much as you might think, and involves quite a number of factors which have been ‘optimized’ to ensure efficiency.

          I suggest a couple calculus courses so that you might understand the difference between power, work and energy. The basics of integration.

          & no, fuel flow is not constant, but you might not understand how fuel injection works.

          1. @pxcmerc, I think what you may be trying to say is that peak power is no advantage if low rpm torque is insufficient to accelerate the car to a speed that requires that peak horsepower, or more simply a car with more torque at low rpm will accelerate faster and therefore reach the next braking zone ahead.
            However, with turbocharging and electric motors none of the current cars should be severely short of low rpm torque.

          2. I think Andy is right but intuitively feel that Merc’s PU can reach 1000Bhp in the near future – with current flow rate! He’s just to shy to admit it ;-)
            The presence of waste-gate along with MGU-H drives me to that conclusion.
            Obviously these engines still disipate so much heat that good chunk of it must be converted to power. It’s a question of time when.

          3. Peak horse power? Important or not, sounds like Shakespeare, ‘to be or…’ The output power depends on revs, more revs more power. It’s a simple math. But, to reach high revs you have to reduce stroke, less stroke, higher revs less torque – more power. Less torque, less driveability. It’s always a chase after optimum solution. Bearing in mind that peak revs are in F1 limited to 15000 engineers are chasing the optimum within given range.
            We mustn’t forget that transmission can iron out some engine driveability issues. Consequently, transmission comes into play as well.
            To ilustrate: The Choice between Renault Clio Sport and Honda Civic Type R? I prefer RS product, if you like a car that must sound like a chainsaw to be quick go after Honda.

          4. I agree with what you are saying (torque, power curve etc) except your statement on efficiency not being related to peak horse power. It is directly relational.

            Thanks for the suggestion on taking a calculus course!

        2. The problem with looking at peak horsepower is that it’s only one part of the equation. Judging how good an engine is by its peak horsepower (or torque figure) alone is like trying to judge how hard a mountain is to climb based solely on the height of its peak. It’s a factor, of course, but one mountain could be a gentle slope while another one is a sheer cliff face.

          Even if (when?) we do see 1000hp from these engines, it’ll be far from the most powerful F1 engines have ever been. In the 80s, the turbocharged engines could reach peaks of nearly 1500bhp when turned all the way up. There is a world of difference between those engines and the ones currently in use though. One of the defining characteristics of a turbo engines versus a normally aspirated engine, is that the power doesn’t rise linearly along with the RPM. On the old V8 engines, the driver could put his foot down at low RPM and get a small amount of power, which would gradually build as the revs rose, to high power at the top of the rpm range. The higher the engine revved, the more power it produced, because the limiting factor (how much air the engine was sucking in) was determined by the engine speed. Turbo engines don’t work like that – they can force air in under pressure so the limiting factor is simply the point at which the exhaust gasses are moving fast enough to spin the turbine up to the point where it’s making its maximum pressure. This gave old turbo engines, especially ones with a lot of boost pressure like the old F1 engines, a very distinct characteristic. The driver would put his foot down at low rpm and get virtually no power. Then as the revs rise, the compressor would spin up, and suddenly the turbo would pressurise, and all of the power would arrive at once. This made them extremely tricky to drive, especially at the exit of the corner, as there would be a delay between the driver putting his foot down, and the engine making power, and the amount of power the engine would make couldn’t be easily controlled. It was almost as if the power was either on or off. So in a car that behaves like that, you need to wait a little longer before you put your foot down, so that the sudden kick of power wouldn’t spin the wheels and send the car into oversteer.

          So two engines can have the same peak power output, but have radically different power delivery characteristics. Ideally, a driver should be able to control the amount of power being delivered to a fine degree of fidelity, by applying the throttle pedal gradually. This was the characteristic of the older V8s, but wouldn’t naturally be the characteristic of a powerful tubocharged engine. Back in the 80s, top level drivers like Ayrton Senna found their own ways of driving around this issue. Senna would stab at the throttle pedal through the whole corner, keeping the revs up and keeping enough hot exhaust gas moving through the exhaust to keep the turbo spinning up, so when he came to power out of the corner, there was less of a delay between him applying the throttle and the car making the power he was after, while also maximising the speed of the car at the apex. Manufacturers would eventually find ways of doing this mechanically, by flowing unburnt fuel through the engine off-throttle, which would then ignite and expand in the exhaust system, keeping the turbo spinning up even while the driver wasn’t applying the throttle. It also makes an awesome machine-gun noise and a lot of flame from the exhaust. It’s actually the same principle the F1 teams were using to keep exhaust gasses flowing through the exhaust off the throttle while they were blowing the diffusers a few years ago.

          This is absolutely fine, when you have plenty of fuel and no restriction on how much you can burn, but with modern F1 cars that’s not a great solution as you’d soon be going way over your fuel limit. Modern F1 cars use complex energy recovery systems which feed energy back into the turbocharger, keeping it spinning using electrical power while the throttle isn’t applied. Not only does this make the power much more easily accessible (even more so than the flaming anti-lag systems of yesteryear), but they also allow power to be fed back in smoothly. When the modern F1 driver applies the throttle at low revs, as with older engines he’ll only receive a small amount of power from the engine itself. Unlike older cars through, the energy recovery system will feed more power through, to smooth out the power curve until the turbocharger gets up to pressure. The pressure from the turbocharger is also finely managed thanks to advanced electrical systems, which mean that the driver can accurately control the amount of power being sent to the wheels by delicately applying the throttle, just like with a normally aspirated engine. They have the best of both worlds.

          What really defines the good from the great, in terms of engines, is how successfully these electronic systems achieve that aim. Peak power is inevitably a target, but as important (if not more so) is how finely that power can be controlled by the driver. If a driver can accurately feed in exactly the amount of power he wants through a corner, he can keep the speed of the car higher and get on the power earlier at the exit of the corner, maximising the speed down the straight. It may seem like a small difference, maybe half a tenth’s hesitation through a corner, but it slows a car down through the whole straight, and is also multiplied by every corner on the track. This is especially serious if the car lacks a little bit of rear end stability as it means he has to hesitate even more. But get a nice, driveable engine, in a chassis which allows the driver to put the power down with confidence, and the laptimes will tumble. As they did for Mercedes last year. That’s the difference between them. Not just peak horsepower, but how driveable, how tractable the engine is in its power delivery. Mercedes have built a chassis which allows the drivers to confidently lean on the rear tyres at the corner exit and married it to an engine which gives them the ability to order up exactly the amount of power they need, exactly when they need it. Look at the replays of races, and notice how the Ferrari and Renault powered cars struggled with oversteer at the corner exit. Look at how badly this hurt Lotus and Sauber, where they had chassis with poor rear-end stability married to engines where the power all came in a big lump that couldn’t be controlled easily by the driver. In days gone by, those cars could have performed very well, once the drivers got used to the rear end instability, because they could find a way of getting the most out of the engine power. These engines didn’t give them the opportunity to do that, and that’s why they spent a season languishing at the back of the grid, seemingly unable to address the massive performance shortfall. Because most of that shortfall was thanks to engines which, while maybe not so far behind in terms of outright peak horsepower, had a power delivery characteristic which directly enhanced all the weak points in their chassis. But marry an engine like the Renault to a chassis with good rear end stability, and the problems will be far less noticeable. Hence why RBR, with their excellent chassis, was able to win a couple of races, despite having an engine which was both down on peak power and by nature harder to get the best from.

          If Renault and Ferrari can significantly improve the power delivery of their power units, their customers are going to make massive steps forward in performance. They’ll be able to develop their cars properly, rather than making compromises to try and maximise rear end stability. This small change could see a team like Sauber go from the back of the grid to a firm midfield contender, or could see Ferrari go from the midfield back up to winning races. It really could have that big of an impact.

          1. Thanks mate for sharing so much insight on the topic. I agree with you on driveability issue. However, I find this one to be very interesting: “One of the defining characteristics of a turbo engines versus a normally aspirated engine, is that the power doesn’t rise linearly along with the RPM.” If you take a look at every engine power-torque chart you’ll see that power develops always linearly because it’s a linear function of revs, numbers of cylinders and the output of every cylinder. The torque runs wild most of the time, nonlinearly. It applies to normaly and turbo aspirated engines as well. I like engines with evenly distributed torque across the whole rev range. Today in F1 we have PUs not engines. MGU-K will assist engine at lower revs, MGU-H as well in a different way, by increasing boost pressure. In 1987. the boost pressure was limited to 4.0bar today it is 3.5. With all electrical aids I’m sure that modern F1 PUs are much easier to drive all issues notwithstanding.

          2. You’re absolutely right, sorry. I wasn’t very clear that I was talking about torque rather than horsepower. High boosting turbo engines tend to generate a really steep torque curve from low revs, whereas a high revving N/A engine would tend to have a smoother torque curve building up along with the RPM. But yeah, it’s a generalisation. I was just trying to explain why a peak horsepower figure doesn’t really tell you anything about whether/why an engine is actually any good.

      2. The only place peak power doesnt help is where the cars foward movement is traction limited, ie a short distence from many apexes. A 1 sec burst of peak once not traction limited helps over an entire straight.

        1. Go check out a dyno graph, and look at the Y-axis, and think about RPMs. It should only take a few seconds to figure it out.

          1. But lets not forget that the electrical motor part can deliver power almost instantly @pcxmerc so that it nicely fills up the lower end of the power curve and with the current setup where they can have the turbo spinning up front that kicks in nice and early as well.

        2. Agree with pxcmerc. Peak power has no meaning unless one sees the power graph.
          Peak power has clear advantage if you are doing drag racing and have a sufficiently long straight track. A car with low on peak power but a greater operating window has more advantage over another car with high peak power if it has lower operating window. Also dependent on track layout.

      3. My comment wasn’t stating that the Mercedes will be a lot faster than the others only due to its peak power. I was just stating that it seems logical that we could be seeing 1000bhp fairly soon, so F1 shouldn’t jump to conclusions about removing the fuel flow limit before we even see how far the teams can get with the current regulations. Of course peak power isn’t the be all end all for these power units, driveability was perhaps the most important factor last year, with the Ferrari having a horrendous season, and Red Bull having a better one despite the Ferrari supposedly being more powerful. Although, that’s ignoring factors such as the superior downforce and chassis on the RB10 compared to the F14.

        1. I had the impression BE just wants 1000hp so that he can say F1 has 1000hp cars because he thinks that will help viewership.

          1. Agreed :)

          2. which it probably will. but lemans now has a 1250hp warrior

  3. An aggressive COTD, but not a wrong COTD.

    1. ColdFly F1 (@)
      17th February 2015, 2:15

      Lotus does not like the word ‘wrong’. Eric Lux used it against Sutil who then became ‘aggressive’.

      1. I understand why you’re bashing on Lotus guys for 2014 season. However I still believe that their problem with E22 was a wrong implementation of the good concept. I’m sure they’ll be back and I’m sure they’ll be ahead of Williams at the end of the season. Be little bit more patient and you’ll see.

        1. ColdFly F1 (@)
          17th February 2015, 9:18

          actually we were just having a game with words based on the COTD.

    2. @coldfly hehe

      Just replace aggressive it for wishful.

  4. Renault proudly highlighting how costly their call for changing the development rules is going to be. I like development, especially in the powertrain but I could live with an in-season freeze, I really don’t think extending development over 20 races is going to help an underperforming PU become competitive any more likely than between season development is.
    I am concerned that the end result will be another era of developmentally frozen “equalised” vitual 1 design low tech-engines.

  5. 1. Where is the coverage about McLaren’s promotional test day? I’d like to have their mileage confirmed and some pictures to analyze.

    2. Indycar? Seriously Keith. Save that for NBC or whatever. This is literally “f1fanatic”. Thanks.

    3. Understanding Toto Wolff still owns… what… $40million worth of Williams F1, does anyone in the entire world think Susie will ever drive a F1 car in a race? Please note I’m not trolling or making some misogynist’s point about female drivers… but at 32 who is she kidding? It’s not going to happen and I wish Williams would move on already. Too much young talent should be getting the seat and simulator time. jmo

    1. There’s been coverage of IndyCar on here for years.

    2. give Susie a go, as a symble of equality, there are many men that have got into f1 easier then her, if she had it so easy like you say, she would have had an f1 seat 3 or 4 years ago.
      Indycar is a great openwheel racing series, go have a look at it, it is better then you think, even better then f1 in many aspects – that is why even f1 websites often mention the series.

  6. The demise of the “Indy 500” as the most watched sporting event in the world should be a lesson for anyone thinking that F1 can grow both profits and viewership by going down the 1 design route.

    1. It’s more layered than that. IndyCar went the one make route after their own efforts to highlight the 500 destroyed a healthy multi-make/engine road racing series known as CART/ChampCar. Ironically nobody cares about the 500 now either. BTW, with the current rules, F1 cars and engines are nearly identical to one another, only made by different constructors.

      1. @fast, yes, I am aware of the sameness of F1 engines, as far as I can see, for the “long engine” the only allowable differences that do not go against current practice are the volume of the combustion chamber and valve size, stroke may vary if a smaller bore than max is chosen but that would be risky for engines expected to reliably turn at 15,000 rpm, bore spacing is similar.
        Had you been reading this site for longer I think you would be aware of my disdain for same-same regulations.

      2. The split killed open-wheel in America. There was so much potential squandered because Roger Penske and Tony George both thought they could be Bernie. It took a long time for me to pull away from my denial of Penske’s hand in the matter, (I was a fan of Al Unser, Jr. in my childhood), but their idiotic power plays pushed what is now IndyCar to where they are now. Let F1 fans remember what happens when there ISN’T a dictator. Whoever replaces Bernie will need more power, not less.

        1. Indeed the Penske hand of obfuscation. It also takes a while to pull away and realize that the service department at his auto dealerships are less than reliable.

        2. indeed, dont compare f1 to indycar, f1 is going downhill in a few facets for other reasons then indycar. indycar shot itself in the foot when it split into 2 series, and has never recovered since. i remember when nigel mansell left f1 for indycar, in that period indycar was almost seen as a competitor to f1 – and it could have built from there to be as big as f1, in the mid to late 90s champcar kept if going with amazing racing and manufacturers still investing heavily (i remember great sounding 1000hp 16,000rpm 2.6l v8 turbos of mercedes, honda and others running 240mph laps on super speedways – what a show!), but by the then it was about the split, and the 2 series vying for viewership.

  7. Very interesting article in today’s New York Times “A Korean Auto-Racing Debacle, but Hope Around the Bend”
    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/world/asia/a-korean-auto-racing-debacle-but-hope-around-the-bend.html?ref=world

    1. Thanks for posting. Would be great if over the long term the track would get Koreans into motorsports.

    2. Thanks very much for that, hadn’t seen it. Some very interesting quotes from the race promoter:

      We started with a big dream of making lots of money

      Trying to hold an F1 race seems to me to the second-best way to lose a lot of money. The best way, of course, is to run an F1 team.

      1. That’s a good one Keith.

      2. I guess both options are – along with owning an airline – amongst the best and quickest ways to become a millionaire. Of course, you need to be a billionaire first before embarking on that journey.

        @keithcollantine

  8. That rise in MBs twitter-count must be adding new pressure to Ferrari executives trying to protect the worlds most valuable brand, how long before the MB brand appears in the jewellry shops, the 3 pointed star is a natural for watches and cufflinks.

  9. I read his comments on *sport, and I don’t know how to take them. I think it’s important for the teams to have differing interests. What is dangerous for F1 are organizations that cannot be questioned publicly (three letter word), and factories becoming the sole determinants for who wins and loses given any manufacturer’s platform. This is a big problem in MotoGP, and has been for a good number of years, but it seems to becoming a real problem with the regular rule changes pricing the smaller teams out of competition and the focus on sealed power units direct from the factory.

    1. *word->acronym. (sleepy)

  10. Why can’t any of the the teams promote them self. There are so many whys you can do it. Why can’t a team start a you tube channel that brings as news of the team ones or twice a week. Drivers telling us how the race went ,where they did good or where hey did bad. A technical person showing and explaining some of the technical stuff on the car. It will promote the team and there sponsors. Have a replica of the race car at race so people can see the cars up close interact with the people coming to the races. But like so many things in F1 it is always some one else job.

    1. @koosoos Sauber has already done most of the things you suggested, it’s all there in their youtube channel, sure it’s not as in depth as any hardcore fan would like but it’s a good start I think.

      It all comes down to the secrecy the teams have, I’m sure the engineers themselves would love to tell everyone why their nose has two prongs or why their top speed is so low etc, but company policy always gets in the way, look at the Willem Toet videos in the Sauber channel and you can see how much he likes to explain the technical side of F1.

    2. As @mantresx mentions some teams really seem to do their best @koosoos. Lets also not forget that Mercedes had quite regular videos, including Rosberg talking about his race weekend on his way to the airport.

      But inevitably they run into the limits posed upon them because they can’t use any race footage (only pictures they ordered from a licenced photographer) and that means it stays with explaining internal stuff and interviews.

    3. @koosoos

      Drivers telling us how the race went, where they did good or where hey did bad.

      Some teams do things like this already. Of course they have to wait until they have left the track after the race because they need Ecclestone’s permission to use anything they film at a race, or a test which isn’t one of their designated ‘Promotional Events’.

      A technical person showing and explaining some of the technical stuff on the car.

      Again, some teams do this sort of thing. But they’re never going to show us anything juicy because it could give an advantage to their rivals.

      It seems to me like you’re blaming the teams for not doing something which it is really the sport’s promoter’s job to take care of.

      1. @keithcollantine

        This second point is the reason I prefer an open rules format more like we have in WEC. The manufacturers there have the freedom to create their own technical solutions, rather than all going down the same very narrow path, so they can be really open and talk enthusiastically about the cars they’ve created. Not to say there are no secret squirrels they keep to themselves, but generally they can talk openly and confidently about their technical solutions knowing that their rivals won’t/can’t copy them as thye’ve come up with their own completely different design.

    4. While it’s onviosuly important the teams do that, it’s FOM that hold the rights to the footage, so teams are limited severely. As someone said before in this comments section, F1 desperately needs to follow the lead of other sports and take a very proactive role on YouTube and other social media. If they had highlights of races, onboards etc think how many views they’d get? Even unofficial top ten overtakes of the season get hundreds of thousands of views, if there was a promoted video then it could be very popular. This would also help improve F1’s image with the younger generation, they would see how popular it is and a perhaps a previous perception that it was antiquated and uncool might change.

      1. Dammit, *obviously

  11. Interesting to read COTD and then the article on RBR test reliability : aggressive with packaging, or again wrong, like last year?

    1. Aggressively wrong? Maybe?

  12. So Mercedes is having a twitter lockdown and making their account private to celebrate 1mil. followers. Good treat for us fans!

    1. @brianfrank302 If they actually post anything interesting and not just a load of patronising ‘#bestfans’ twaddle.

  13. kpcart@iinet.net.au
    17th February 2015, 15:53

    about the 1000hp thing… i think a lot of people are forgetting it is hybrid power. i think some people still think it is pure turbocharged power of the internal combustion engine.
    how much proportion of the power is internal combustion? last year we saw on occasions when hybrid power didnt work and only the ICE (like rosberg one race) then the top speed was about 40kmh slower, and the car appeared nothing like even an 80s turbo engined car in a straight line. i think they probably make 550hp these 1.6 turbo motors with fuel flow limit. i think Mercedes are peaking closer towards what is possible to get what is from the actual engine, and are likely to gain more from the hybrid power. while Ferrari and Renault can really get more power just from the ICE with their tokens.

    — i assume the hybrid electrical power is available from idle, so the team that can make the most power there will probably have an advantage in accereration?

  14. can someone tell me what the claimed engine power figures were from 2014 and what is expected this year.
    i have previously read renault had 690-710hp , and mercedes had up to 770-790 (the talked about 80 or so hp advantage).
    i read that mercedes has found and extra 60hp for this year (~bringing it to 850?). and i have also read that renault has 850hp for this year, when it presented the power unit before the first test. does that mean they are equal now???
    what is a true estimate from last season? i am sure ferrari and renault had more to make up, and probably made up a huge chunk, even if mercedes has improved to, i dont think mercedes had as much left to improve.

  15. “Why do these potential sponsors never make the leap when they are not really undaunted by the amounts requested in F1. What’s holding them back? Is it because of the sport’s archaic management and organisation?”

    What is holding them back is the lack of publicity. Why should someone donate money to F1 if it is an anonymous donation? If I was giving away money I’d prefer to give it to a charity. I realise for the most part sponsors aren’t actually anonymous, because their logos are painted on the side of the cars, but effectively they are anonymous donors because there is so little publicity regarding F1 that no one actually sees who they are. I think Rolex got more publicity (and more memorable too) from Mr Ecclestone’s comment last year than some of the sponsors, who paid tens of millions of Euros for publicity purposes, did.

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